In a big win for the Hindu petitioners, a Varanasi court, on Thursday, ordered the videographic survey to continue in the Gyanvapi mosque complex while hearing the petition of five women to worship Hindu deities at the disputed site, adjacent to the Kashi-Vishwanath Temple.

The court also decided that Ajay Kumar Mishra, the court commissioner for the survey, will continue with his court-mandated duties after a petition filed by the Gyanvapi mosque management committee (Anjuman Intezamiya Masjid) sought his removal from the post alleging a bias towards the Hindu petitioners.

On Saturday, Mishra and lawyers representing both the communities were stopped from entering the mosque premises to conduct a video survey. The inspection was ordered by a local court a year back after five women had approached the court asking permission to worship the Shringar Gauri, Lord Hanuman, and Nandi on a daily basis located at the back of the mosque’s western wall. The Gyanvapi mosque and its lawyers have vehemently opposed any videography inside the mosque, while the lawyers of the petitioners claim that they have the court’s nod.

Back in 1991, a group of petitioners and local priests had approached the Varanasi court to allow access inside the mosque area for the worship of Hindu deities. One of the petitioners Vijay Shankar Rastogi called for the demolition of the mosque as he had argued that the mosque was built back in the 17th century by Aurangzeb after the destruction of a portion of the iconic Kashi Vishwanath temple, which was built by Maharaja Vikaramaditya roughly 2,050 years back.

A trial court in Varanasi ruled that the rectifications sought by the petitioners will not apply because of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.

A petition was filed in the Allahabad High Court in 1998 by the Anjuman Intezamiya Masjid saying that the matter couldn’t be resolved in a civil court. The HC then issue a stay order on the civil court’s proceedings. On December 2019, a month after the Supreme Court’s Ayodhya verdict, advocate Vijay Shankar Rastogi filed a new petition requesting survey of the Gyanvapi mosque complex. He said that the Allahabad HC in 1998 had postponed a lower court decision to gather evidence in order to the true origins of the Gyanvapi mosque.

Read More: A timeline of major events in the Gyanvapi mosque case so far

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